When (and why) did what used to be known as Feminism become labelled Radical Feminism?

[RulersMakeBadLovers]

A very incisive feminist pointed this out to me the other day.

S'all very interesting (MN should have a chin-stroking emoticon)

Yes, without doubt radical or indeed any feminists get masses of criticism all ove the place. I tend just to say I want equal rights for women under the law and fairness at home rather than use the word feminism and then just get on with life earning much more than most men and explaining how women can have large happy families, power, money, career success anda lovely life and how you go about achieving that. I then get women saying we cnanot all be good, m any of us adore being care home workers and carers on tiny wages - well fine do that if you like it but women will never get anywhere until we get over the rule of 3s in place - once yo uhave more than 3 women on a board, more than 30% women right at the very top it is hard for a woman to be seen as anything other than token.

Women are doing very well at present. 70% go back to work when their children are 12 - 18 mnoths old. By 2020 most women will earn more than their male partner. It is all to play for. (UK of course; not places like Saudi).

Xenia, when will you learn that your personal experience cannot be applied to most women- or men! It is just not helpful to say "well, just go out and earn more" to every situation- life does not work like that.

The economic power angle is very important to me, too. Obviously not everyone can be Xenia. But I want to see a mandatory quota at all levels of enterprise management (50% rather than 30%) and I want it to stop being "traditional" or expected for women to wield less economic power than men. I suspect that, when women hold more than half the purse strings, some contemporary anti-women anomalies like lapdancing would die out. So, clearly, would many long-term abuses of power against women because women will no longer "have to" just deal with it.

I believe genuine economic parity will go hand-in-hand with family friendly working practices. I believe this will also liberate those men who feel bound to certain styles of behaviour by their gender. More importantly, it will lead to girls and boys growing up with truly equal expectations for the first time.

I'd love to think I'll see this start to happen in my lifetime, so I hope Xenia's forecast is correct. I think Europe will be predominantly muslem in my lifetime, too. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

"Obviously not everyone can be Xenia. But I want to see a mandatory quota at all levels of enterprise management (50% rather than 30%) "

I find quotas a horrible idea, as it leads to the successful candidate always having to put up with the accusation that she's only there because of the quota and not on merit.

Also, what do you do if the gender split in applicants isn't 50/50?

Vince Cable was on R4 this morning discussing quotas. Janet Street Porter was rather vociferously demanding a 50% quota. Cable said "what would happen if there wasn't enough women applicants with the right skills" etc,,,, I can't believe the case that there isn't enough women capable of doing top level jobs, what I do think is that men are likely to promote in their own image. So it's pretty much a non argument, has been for some time.

I used to sit as a student member on the faculty board which also made hiring decisions on lecturers. We often struggled getting the shortlisting right in the eyes of the Gleichstellungsbeauftragte (Equality wotsits, sorry don't know the English title) - as there were simply not enough female applicants for the role.

Nothing to do with women not being capable, but more with women not applying.

It is a problem, and it needs to be adressed, but I believe quotas would do more harm than good.

I think though that names and any other hints to sex or ethnicity should be removed from the CV before forwarded on to the hiring manager - that still doesn't solve the problem of discrimination at interview stage, but probably would help people get invited in the first place.

If few women apply, WidowWadman, what do you think the reasons are? Is it because women lack the skills & experience or the confidence or is it because women think the extra work/responsibility is not conducive to family life?

I think it's not a single factor - lack of confidence and female role models may be one factor, the family life thing (combined with society's expectation that it's the mother whose career has to take a back seat if a family is wanted) another.
I had a lecturer who actually kept saying that he things women should go to teach in school instead of academia so they have more time for their babies (yeah, I know)

Xenia - the 70% statistic is interesting - does it mean 70% of women who were working before they have a child go back on any one occasion?

That would mean if 100 women have children 30 will drop out of work after their first child, another 21 after the second child, and if they go on to have 3 children each only 34 would have kept up their career at all.

I suspect it might be less, as I bet the 70% figure goes down with each birth.

...sorry to be glum!

It was quoted in an article about new maternity rights in the Times at the weekend. It said 70% - 82%. In fact in recessions families need money so more women than ever are hanging on to jobs. It's perfectly easy to work with 5 of them and even be a single parent whilst doing it. If I can anyone can. The more chidlren you have the more responsibilities you have to them to keep them so the more likely you will be working to keep them.

Xenia have you any concept that saynig that because you can do soemthing means everyone can do it, is very narcissistic?

Do you really have no understanding of that after all your time on mumsnet?

A lot of things are just about strength of will and determination and having high expectations for yourself. Most women can do more if they try.

Who looks after Xenia's dc while she's working full time? Who looks after their dc?

It's not about strength of will, it's about unpaid domestic labour and how much of that gets provided collectively via the State. Structures and systems, economics and politics.

I am not much in favour of state provision of thigns. I think we all benefit from much lower tax and much less of a state.

The feminist issue is to what extent women are a mug at home and get saddled with more than their other half and how they are so non assertive that they are unable to change things so they do a fair share each.

The question of who looks after my children is a question that can equally be asked of men but no one does do they because they are sexist to the core, most of them. A man who works also has childcare issues. Plenty of them find and hire annies. If in the 80s my chidlren's father could advertise for and find and interview nannies then I don't see what is wo wrong with men in 2012 that they cannot do that too. It should be a joint enterprise (we found ours before I gave birth).

In fact in fact the literal answer to your question above is "a man" does but they are older children now.

Oh.. deteled post above. I wonder what they said? They usually tend to be the most interesting ones.

Was your nanny that you had for 10 years ,a man or a woman?

I don't know when it happened exactly (as in date) but what you are observing is the backlash.

Why? Because we still live in a male supremacy (despite the gains that have been made for some women), and we got too uppity.

YY, Beach, I think so too. A bit like the Fifties Housewife backlash to women in the factories. Only without the government push ... oh, wait a minute.

I find it completely soul destroying. If the Me from the 70s visited this site, she would be incandescent with rage. We were so sure that our daughters would carry the torch......

Im going to be controversial.Back in the 70s,and now for that matter,did you see the men doing the childcare,shopping etc.

Did i see that in the 70s?Occasionally.

Do I see it now? Occasionally.

Actually I think there have been big improvements. What I didn't expect was that, 40 years on, we'd still be debating about men "helping" with the house & child work, that the material gains would still be so fragile or that the backlash would take on the weird disguise of a pornified society. (Using a lot of top-of-head language here, with apologies.)

Still shorthanding - I thought that equality would bring parity and parity would bring greater freedoms of choice to men as well as women, so I didn't think feminism would still be under such vicious attack. I was young and idealistic. Also, equality has not yet been achieved - even in our societies, let alone more oppressive ones - so my theory isn't yet tested.

I feel a combination of pride, joy, despair and frustration!

Marking place to read fully